Ultraviolence
by lovelydays
Summary: Modern AU, manslaughter cover-up/on the run edition. In which Sansa is conflicted, Petyr is shady, and everything is sexy but terrible.


1. _in medias res_

They finally stop driving when they pull into a motel parking lot somewhere on the outskirts of Raleigh.

Sansa's in the passenger seat. Her hair is mussed, her forehead's sweaty, and her mind hasn't stopped racing since they left New York hours ago. The sun is just starting to rise on the eastern edge of the sun-baked asphalt parking lot.

It's hot. Oppressively so. Petyr turns the engine off but keeps the keys in the ignition as they sit.

Finally, he breaks the silence with a small clearing of his throat. "We should get a room," he says, "and sleep for a few hours. I think this place is far enough off the beaten path that we won't be found."

Sansa finally asks the question that's been on her mind all night: "Where are we going?"

He chuckles. It's a little condescending and she grits her teeth, biting back a snarl.

"Miami," he says, and adds, "for a bit."

The motel has been standing for a good long time and it's the kind of place where nothing good has happened in a long time. The front desk agent's name is Carol and she gives these two a hard once-over as they walk in, sizes them up as the door slams behind them. They've got money, and not just a cursory, temporary amount, a lucky windfall from a recently dead parent or insurance payout, which is the primary source of "money" in these parts. No, these two have had money for a long time before they arrived at the Co-Z-Cabins Motel 30 minutes outside Raleigh, and they will continue to have it for a long time after they leave.

Carol likes to make a game out of guessing the relationship between the guests she sees here. Usually it's easy enough – hooker and john being the most common, closely followed by junkies and methheads looking for a place to get high. These two don't seem to fit either mold – too clean-cut, too healthy, and far too well-groomed to be staying here out of necessity. She's young and tall and willowy, a word Carol has never heard used outside a fashion magazine, and she's dressed like a rich girl in a grey dress and pearls, red hair messy and a piece of it sticking to her lip gloss before she self-consciously brushes it away. The man behind her is shorter than she is by a hair, salt-and-pepper hair with a close-trimmed beard, and he's in a button-down shirt and slacks but carries himself as if he's wearing a three-piece suit. Carol can tell instantly that these two are Not From Around Here, and she almost says those words, "Y'all aren't from around here, are ya?" before deciding that she's not going to play the friendly Southerner to these rich assholes.

The girl is the one who approaches the desk. "Checking in?" Carol asks, and the girl nods. She gives her the name "Elaine Stone," but spells it "Alayne," which is stupid and can't be real. Carol huffs and hands over a room key.

One bed. She's his mistress, Carol decides, and he's got to be some sort of businessman, or maybe a politician. Carol lights another cigarette as the couple heads for their room.

When they reach the room, Sansa unzips her dress and hangs it in the bathroom before falling into bed. She'll run a hot shower to steam some of the wrinkles out before they check out. She wishes she'd been given time to pack; she has only her laptop, her phone, and her wallet, only what she was carrying on her when she left work on Thursday night. She sets her phone to charge on the pressboard nightstand before crawling beneath the duvet cover.

Across the room, Petyr's on his own computer, tapping furiously on the keyboard. The click-click-click is an irritating distraction as she shuts her eyes and tries not to think about what they've done.

* * *

2. _in new york (some time before)_

It started on a hot summer night.

The air was sticky and heavy. Sansa had been invited to dinner at Aunt Lysa's apartment. She wasn't inclined to go, as usually it involved making tedious conversation with her brat of a son, but the kid was at camp up in the Poconos and she had no other engagements on which to fall back. So at 6:30, as the Vale Capital offices began to clear out, she snuck into the bathroom, put on a new stone-grey dress and hung her suit in the closet in Petyr's empty office, and took a cab uptown to Lysa's place on 79th and Park.

Petyr was already there. Of course. He had been plying her aunt for months, wining and dining her and bit by bit, coaxing information out of her that the woman barely knew was pertinent. "We're playing the long game, sweetling," he told her when she first raised objections about the level of intimacy within their relationship. "You want to see the Lannisters go down as much as I do, right?" Of course she does, and it makes sense that he'd target Lysa – her late husband had served as chief of staff under President Baratheon; she was a veritable wellspring of secrets. (But still, Sansa pouted to herself in the ten minutes between sleep and wakefulness most nights, did it have to be this woman?)

She arrived at the building, greeted the doorman affectionately, and took the elevator to the penthouse. The Arryn money and life insurance settlement had been well-spent, she thought, as she checked her hair in the mirrored foyer walls. Lysa met her in the entryway with a kiss and a too-tight hug.

"You look so beautiful, Sansa!" her aunt said, fingering the string of pearls around her own neck. "You're so thin, you'd really ought to eat something."

Sansa smiled politely. "You look lovely as well, Aunt Lysa," she said automatically, adding, "I love that necklace."

"Do you like it?" Lysa asked. "It's an old Tully heirloom. Your mother always coveted it, but your grandmother willed it to me when she passed away."

Sansa tried to hide her wince at the mention of her mother. "I can see why she liked it," she said. "It's beautiful."

Petyr appeared in the hallway then, straightening his tie as he swept to Lysa's side. Sansa looked him over knowingly, and he gave her a look that told her to say nothing. She bit the inside of her cheek as he laid a hand on Lysa's arm and said, "Sansa, it's wonderful to see you. How are your studies going?"

_You know very well how they're going_, Sansa thought, but said out loud, "They're going well, thank you. Actually, I just finished law school in two years, rather than the customary three, so…" She trailed off and concluded with a smile that she could tell only half reached her eyes.

"Of course you did, how fantastic," said Petyr. "And you've been earning such rave reviews from Vale's legal department as well. We'll toast to you tonight. A celebration."

"I thought we were celebrating something else entirely," Lysa said. With a sly smile, she held out her left hand. A massive stone glittered on her ring finger. "Sansa, it seems as though you're about to have a new uncle."

"… Oh, my goodness! Congratulations to both of you! This is fantastic news, I'm so happy for you both." Sansa waited perhaps a split second too long to erupt into the congratulatory spiel, but if Lysa noticed, her face didn't betray it, leaning in to hug Sansa again.

From over Lysa's shoulder, Sansa made eye contact with Petyr. His eyes said _Don't you dare_.

"I won't," she mouthed as she and her aunt broke apart.

Dinner was filled with long silences and meaningful, avoidant phrases. Twice, Lysa made reference to the size of the ring on her finger, which Sansa found gauche. She said nothing, just chewed her risotto and kept her eyes cast downward on her plate. As Lysa filled and refilled their wine glasses, her tongue became looser, and Sansa's body tensed accordingly.

"This is wonderful," Sansa said as she pushed her plate away. "Did you make this yourself?"

"Gods no, dear!" Lysa laughed. "I've always been hopeless in the kitchen. I'll give your regards to the cook when she comes in tomorrow. Would you like a little more?"

Sansa shook her head. "I'm fine, but thank you."

"Probably a wise decision," Lysa snorted, practically under her breath. "Wouldn't want you to get fat like your sainted mother. I'm going to go check on the crème brulee."

As Lysa's heels clicked away down the hall, Sansa shot a daggered stare at Petyr. "You've chosen wisely. She's a catch."

Petyr shook his head. "I apologize, Sansa. You know she's not well."

"Then why are you marrying her?" She knew the question sounded petulant, but she couldn't bring herself to care in the moment.

Petyr stood up from the table, dropping his napkin beside his half-empty plate. "Come out on the terrace with me," he said. "It's not safe to talk here."

The air was starting to chill a bit as they walked out onto the rooftop terrace. The sun had just begun to set over the Hudson, and Sansa turned away from it strategically, forcing Petyr to squint into the brilliant orange dusk. Her arms crossed, she waited.

"Your aunt is... She's not healthy, Sansa," said Petyr. "And there is information to which she is privy that I need. The ends justify the means, and I'd be a hypocrite if I asked you to make sacrifices without making them myself."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"You're perfectly intelligent. I know you can follow just fine," Petyr said with a sigh. "All of this began years and years ago. Before you were even a twinkle in your mother's eye, Sansa. And I hate to bring up your mother again, particularly after the way her name has been flung around tonight, but if you want to understand, you need to listen to me."

"What is there to know? You were in love with her and she chose my father. I've known that for years," Sansa said irritably.

"That isn't the half of it. Your mother... she chose another man, not your father at all, and it ended very badly for me. I was cut down. Humiliated. Physically injured, too, as you might have guessed." Sansa recalled the bullet scars on Petyr's chest and pursed her lips, chastened. "But Lysa always carried a torch for me. We were young, my ego was battered, mistakes were made... I took her virginity. It was a mistake. She was 17, I was 23 - there was no way we could have had any sort of lasting relationship."

"I'm 23 now," Sansa snapped. "You don't see our age difference as such an insurmountable issue, do you?"

"You know very well that I do not," said Petyr. "But that's beside the point. Over the years, Lysa has never lost whatever ardor she felt for me. In fact, she claims it has only grown stronger, though what part of that can be attributed to her illnesses, I can't say..."

Sansa nodded slowly. She understood the power of unrequited love, dark and heady obsession, as well as anyone else. And while part of her itched uncomfortably to see that obsession abused in this way, it was tempered by her dislike of her aunt and desire to see their greater goal achieved. _The ends justify the means_, Petyr had said, and he wasn't wrong.

"I understand what you're doing and why you're doing it," she finally said. "I don't necessarily enjoy watching it, but I understand it, and I'm not going to do anything to sabotage it. Obviously. I'm not a child."

A smile glimmered on Petyr's lips as he stepped closer to her, reaching out to stroke a lock of hair that fell past her shoulders, framing her face. "I know you're not," he said, his fingers carding through her hair. "You're perfect."

The kiss was long and languid and she melted into it like butter.

And then she heard Lysa's scream from across the roof.

"We need to call the police."

Sansa blinked. She was frozen where she stood on the edge of the roof, staring fifteen stories down at where Lysa's body lay crumpled on the concrete. She felt Petyr's hand at the small of her back and flinched away, scuttling back to the middle of the roof in panic.

"Sansa," he repeated. "We need to call the police. Right now. Do you have your phone on you?"

"No," she said shakily. "It's inside. Why are we calling 911?"

Petyr started for the door. "_Follow me, Sansa_," he said crossly, as if he had not just pushed a woman off a rooftop terrace, as if the events of the night constituted a mere annoyance, a mosquito bite or undercooked fish. "Your aunt became hysterical after finding us in a platonic embrace. She grabbed you by the hair, dragged you to the edge of the roof. I managed to pull the two of you apart, but she became even more upset, and in her state of heightened emotions, she told us to go fuck ourselves, that we'd be sorry we betrayed her, and then threw herself off the roof. What should we do in this situation? Call the police. Not another moment's notice. We should have already made the call."

As they reached the dining room, Sansa's hands were still shaking, and her scalp stung where Lysa had yanked out a chunk of her hair. "You make the call. I don't know that I can speak."

"Understood." She dug through her tote for her phone and handed it to Petyr, who hit "emergency call" as they both strode toward the front door at a clip. She could only hear his end of the conversation, and as they waited for the elevator in the hall, he paced back and forth nervously.

"Hello, yes, ah. My name is Petyr Baelish." His voice trembled as he spoke, and Sansa watched admirably, knowing only vaguely how twisted and sick that admiration was. "My fiancée just jumped off her roof. We're at 79th and Park and we need an ambulance. Yes – yes, ah, fifteen stories. I don't – no, no… I don't believe so. Northeast corner. Thank you. Thank you so much."

As he hung up, he handed her phone back, and the elevator door opened on a ding. They stepped inside, and Petyr turned to face her as he hit the button for the lobby. "Sansa, you need to listen to me," he said. "Everything I have done, I've done to protect you. Do you understand that? We have to protect each other now."

She nodded, and fell against his chest, tears starting to well up in her eyes as he wrapped his arms around her.

Downstairs, a crowd of pedestrians had already gathered around Lysa's lifeless body. "Fuck," Petyr muttered under his breath, as they both pushed through the crowd. Only Sansa heard him.

He did it to protect her. She knew that on some level, she should be disturbed, but the fact of the matter was that it wasn't premeditated, and Lysa had her by the hair, dangling over the edge of the roof, feet scrabbling for purchase against the rooftop and finding no traction in her black pumps. It would have been her down here, splattered across Park Avenue, had Petyr not talked Lysa down and pulled the two of them apart. In the ensuing scuffle, she was disoriented and it wasn't until she heard Lysa scream that she even understood what had happened.

And above all else, the unspoken question echoed in her mind – wouldn't she have done the same? If not to protect Petyr, who could certainly fend for himself, then at least to protect herself? Lysa Arryn held no allegiance to Sansa herself. She may have been her aunt, but what good was common blood in a world where she'd spent the past decade watching her family picked off, one by one and two by two?

_Everything I've done, I've done to protect you_.

Sansa shivered as the realization struck her. People died protecting others all the time. It meant nothing. You're there, and then you're not anymore, it's all over and there's no more suffering or worry. To have someone_ kill_ to protect her, though – that struck her to the molten core, made her blood run hot as the significance settled into her veins. She was forever in his debt, perhaps, but he was more vulnerable than ever now.

She owned a little piece of him, now.

* * *

3. _in miami_

They pull into the driveway of a house overlooking the beach. Petyr parks and looks over both shoulders before he unlocks the car doors. "Stay here," he says, and Sansa nods. "I'll be back shortly."

It's hot outside, and hotter still inside the car. She wishes he'd left the air conditioning running, feels sweat already starting to bead where the skin of her legs touches the leather seats of the Mercedes.

It's been 24 hours since they left New York. The detectives at the precinct told them they were free to go, and Petyr disclosed his intentions freely, told them he had already planned a business trip overseas and Sansa, as his legal associate, was coming along as well. The detectives wished them a safe flight, didn't bat an eye, told them they'd stay in touch if anything new came to light. This was money, this was true power – to speak bald-faced lies and have them accepted as gospel truth.

She's still not sure why they had to run like this. She lied for him in New York, reiterated every aspect of his story, protected herself as much as she protected him, and as performances went, it was convincing as hell – her voice breaking as she described the way Lysa's long fingers dug into her scalp, the way her palms dripped with sweat when she recounted looking over that roof overhang into the abyss of Park Avenue. The long red hairs still clinging to her aunt's nails corroborated their line.

She would kill for a shower and food that isn't from a gas station.

She sees Petyr trotting back toward the car, a second set of keys and a folder dangling from his hand. He looks like hell, dark circles under his eyes and his hair unkempt, pants creased from a day of driving. She can only imagines she looks the same, greasy skin and limp hair and mascara smeared beneath her eyes. "All right," he says as he unlocks the car door and slides back into the driver's seat. "We have a place for a couple nights, before we fly out to Austria on Monday." He hands her the documents he's holding, and she opens them; on top is a new passport, with Sansa's picture and the name Alayne Stone. "Better to be safe than sorry," he says when he catches her look of askance. "You were right to give an alias. We're going to follow through."

"Can I just ask one question?" Sansa says, as he turns the key in the ignition and pulls out of the driveway. She tries for politeness, but the events of the past 48 hours have worn her nerves down to live wires. "What are we doing? Why are we in Miami? Why are we going to _Austria_? Why did we run like this, if everything is fine and no one suspects a thing? What the hell is your _plan_, Petyr?"

He shakes his head, obviously exhausted. "What do_ you_ think, Sansa?"

"I don't _know_. I've been turning it over and over in my head and I can't think, I'm too fucking tired and scared and I don't think you even know what you're doing. You're just making it all up as you go along, and I'm terrified that they're going to find us out and we'll –"

"You really think so little of me?" Petyr snaps. "If you haven't put two and two together yet, Sansa, we're in Florida because the New York media has already started speculating that we had something to do with Lysa's death, because a broken clock with 24 hours of cable news programming to fill is right on occasion, and the press has been beating down the doors of both our empty apartments over the past day, hoping we'll come out together, looking suspiciously as if we've been having a torrid affair and plotting the death of your aunt for her insurance payout. We're in Miami because no one is going to expect us to be here, we have no apparent ties to anyone in the state of Florida and if it gives us two days to get our affairs in order before we leave the country, then it's time well spent. And I'm surprised that you haven't worked out why we're going to Austria yourself, since you've spent the past two years studying international extradition processes, but if you need it spelled out for you, it's a cover-your-ass move disguised as business as usual, because, as it turns out, I did in fact have a business trip to Vienna scheduled this week."

"Oh," Sansa says, unable to think of anything else to add.

"I apologize if my tone was unkind," Petyr says generously. "But you have to understand. We're in an incredibly precarious position right now. We may have nothing to worry about, because the NYPD, like most law enforcement agencies, absolutely loathes for the media to make up its mind about an ongoing investigation before all the evidence presents itself. But in the event that such evidence comes to light that would invalidate our statements – and I don't know what that might be, but I'm positive that it could happen – it is in our best interests to be in a place where we are not likely to be found. Especially right now. Hence Miami."

Sansa looks around at the cars around them, mid-range sedans and convertibles in bright colors, a sea of red Mustangs and white Miatas with the tops down. "Is there any other reason why Miami?"

"I have… connections."

"Should I be nervous about these connections?"

Petyr shoots her the look she knows well, half catlike curiosity and half amusement, a slight quirk of the lips on its way to becoming a smile. He twists the steering wheel and makes a smooth left turn as he says, "Do you trust me?"

She frowns. The answer, if she's being honest, is no. "Should I?"

"Good answer," says Petyr. "My answer to your question is that no, you shouldn't be nervous. Vale handles the investments of many legitimate clients. There are no shady connections involved here, just blanket permission to stay at a certain restaurateur's vacation home whenever I'm in town."

Sansa dislikes this game, the leading questions and turns of phrase that make her feel as though he's making a game out of manipulating her. But she also enjoys it – not so much the way he plays her like a toy for his own strange pleasure, but the thrill and feeling of danger that accompanies it, the way he reacts when she pushes back instead of playing along. It's a sick little power game that makes her face flush and her heart beat harder. She hates how much she loves it.

"Good," she says primly, crossing her legs and folding her hands over one knee. "I'd hate to think I'd gone on the run with some sort of _criminal_."

It takes a beat for the joke to land. When it does, he chuckles, low and rough, his voice raspy from lack of sleep. She hates that she loves it.

The house is pure Miami, which is to say that it's pure schlock. There's a massive floor-to-ceiling fish tank in the entryway, and a spiral staircase leading up to a second-floor balcony, and Sansa is taken aback – horrified, really – by the tasteless décor. There's a chandelier in the hall, dripping with crystals the size of her fist. It's disgusting. But the place is set down a long, secluded street in a gated community, and the backyard leads right onto the water, so it seems unlikely that they'll be woken up by CNN tomorrow.

If Petyr is similarly put off, it doesn't show. "You should shower," he says as he drops his laptop bag on a chair shaped like a manicured hand, "and I'll make lunch while you do. Don't take too long. We've got business to attend to."

"Petyr?" Sansa feels silly asking the question, but she doesn't know how else to put it. "I didn't have time to pack anything, you know, so this is all I've got to wear –"

He smacks his forehead. "Of course. I'm sorry. Put on something from one of the guest bedrooms, and once we've eaten, I'll take you shopping. We both need clothes for the next few days, now that I think about it."

"Oh, you don't have to do that," Sansa says. She's never liked the idea of letting someone else buy her clothes. Her tastes are particular.

"Are you certain?" Petyr asks. "If you intend to buy your own clothing, that's fine, but let me put it on my card. I want your account to have as little activity on it as possible for the next week. If anyone happens to be tracking our whereabouts, I don't want it to be immediately apparent that we're together."

"Even though we're supposed to be leaving the country together?"

"Not until Monday, Sansa. And we're certainly not supposed to be here."

"All right," she shrugs. "But I still feel as though you're acting like a sugar daddy."

"Nonsense. You've got plenty of sugar of your own, sweetling. The bathroom is upstairs, guest bedroom's right next door." He turns on his heel and strides from the room as Sansa, her brow furrowed in slight consternation, crosses her arms and heads for the bathroom.

Luckily, the second floor is slightly less tacky, and the shower is beautiful, at least as far as showers go – an all-glass setup that takes her a moment to figure out how to work. As she steps inside, letting the hot water stream over her body and wash away the sins of the past 48 hours, she exhales, rubbing red-rimmed eyes and squeezing her eyelids tight shut.

She is very, very tired. She wants a cup of coffee and a good night's sleep and to be literally anywhere but where she is. She wants to erase everything that's happened in the last two days. She wants to go _home_, not just to Manhattan but all the way upstate to Winterfell. She wants to lie on the hearth rug in the grand living room, her head propped up on two couch pillows as she alternately reads Jane Austen and stares up at the pine beams holding up the vaulted roof and pets Lady and Shaggydog where they're curled up beside her. She wants her parents in the next room, both engrossed in books of their own, while Jon and Arya and Robb and Bran play football outside and Rickon digs in the muddy pond and cheers them on, his hands and mouth popsicle-sticky and red. She wants to paint lake scenes and ballerinas in watercolor in her room. She wants to spend all afternoon outside on the grounds, weaving dandelion crowns with her sister and telling secrets and laughing and not growing up. She wants to be anywhere but in this glass shower in Miami, with a man she shouldn't love, whose love for her is electric and dangerous and _wrong_, who brings out the wickedness in her and tells her he wants her most when she's depraved and scheming and cruel. She hates that she loves this, loves that she's seen him plot to take down entire empires but he touches her like she's made of origami.

She doesn't realize she's crying until she shuts off the shower and her cheeks keep getting wetter.

When she walks into the kitchen, wrapped in a plush towel with her damp hair in tendrils around her shoulders and down her back, Petyr's got a cup of coffee and a glass of ice water garnished with a lemon slice already waiting for her, and he's rummaging through the enormous, spotless stainless-steel fridge. "There's not much in the way of food," he says, "but there's some fruit over on the counter, if you'd like, or we could wait and go out for lunch –"

She interrupts him by pressing a kiss to his lips. It's the first time they've touched since The Thing Happened. He reacts in brief surprise, before sliding his hand down the small of her back. It rests there, heavy and so very _present_.

"I love you," she breathes against his lips. He inhales and pulls her closer, wrapping both hands around her waist as he deepens the kiss. It's hungry and hard, him biting at her lips as she cups his jaw with one hand and slides a hand into his hair with the other. She's as tall as he is in her bare feet and has him pushed back against the granite counter, one of her knees edging his legs apart. This is the part where she pushes and plies him, molds him like putty because she knows how badly he wants her, always. His beard is rough against her soft skin and when he moves to unwrap her towel, she lets him, because she has never known power as potent as the sharp intake of breath he draws when it falls to the floor.

"You're so good to me, baby girl," he mumbles reverently, and she smirks into his kiss. She is _so_ good to him, and he's _so_ bad for her, fills up the hollowness inside her with poison and teaches her to spit it at others. He's an asp and she once was a dove, but now she's becoming more like the viper he's taught her to be.

* * *

4. _in international waters (or airspace, as the case may be)_

Three days in Miami were two days in Miami too much.

When they board the plane that will take them to Paris, where they'll fly onward to Lichtenstein, Sansa is tired of the heat, the noise, the colors, and the sun. She's pink from spending the previous afternoon in the backyard pool, and she's becoming more and more paranoid as the days tick on. She dyed her hair chestnut brown in the spotless bathroom two days before, cringing as she slathered on the chemicals that will ruin her natural auburn. When she rinsed out the dye in the shower, it turned a dark, bloody rust-brown as it flowed down the drain, and she felt as though she'd lost a part of herself.

Petyr has shaved and he's dressed less neatly than usual, practically casual in khakis and button-downs with no tie or jacket. Sansa's new clothes are from the sales rack at Nordstrom, and she resists the bright colors and short cuts characteristic of Miami in favor of mostly black. She buys a pair of reading glasses, not because she needs them, but because she's never worn anything like them and they'll obscure her face further. She barely recognizes herself when she looks in the mirror for the first time, but he can't get enough of her like this. He drives out of the way to buy her a drawer full of new underwear at Agent Provocateur and dresses her up in black lace and a garter belt their last night in the tacky house. She seduces him poolside in the glimmering moonlight, drops her new black dress to the ground and smears her red lipstick all over both their faces.

The TSA gives them no trouble as they waltz through security, miraculously. "Have a safe flight, Mr. Baelish," says one of the guards as he hands back their passports. "And you as well, Ms. Stone." They have a drink in the first-class lounge before they depart, and it's nearly empty at 10 a.m., prompting Petyr to lay his hand on her knee and squeeze until she shoots him a cutting glare.

When they're on the plane, Sansa pushes her seat back and pulls a cashmere throw up around her knees. She's wearing a long, loose black skirt and matching top, with a new leather jacket over the top – an aesthetic choice she'd never had made in New York. "Do I look as if I'm in mourning?" she asks Petyr.

He looks her over as she raises her eyebrows, not quite suggestively but not so innocently either. "Certainly," he says. "You look lovely."

"Good," she says. Then she opens her book, an historical nonfiction text about the War of the Roses that she picked up at the airport newsstand, and slides her reading glasses down her nose so that she can peer over the tops of them.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, she jerks awake. Petyr sits upright beside her, and she can see a page full of emails on his laptop screen from where she lies. It's a list of names: at a glance, she notices Tywin Lannister, Roose Bolton, and Olenna Tyrell near the top of the list. She yawns and starts to sit upright, and as she stirs, Petyr deftly switches tabs to a blank email.

"Sleep well?" he asks. "You were out for a couple hours."

Sansa shrugs, rubbing the bridge of her nose where it's sore from her new glasses. Petyr must have slipped them off when she fell asleep, because he takes them out of his pocket and hands them back to her. She accepts them, but doesn't slide them back on. Instead, she holds them loosely in one hand, tracing the outline of the lenses with her other index finger.

"What are we going to do?" she asks quietly. "Once we're there."

Petyr raises his eyebrows. "I am going to several meetings with clients in Vienna. You will attend with me and serve as my assistant legal counsel. It's a business trip, _Alayne_."

"And then?"

He shakes his head. "End of story. We'll discuss this later."

Sansa rolls her eyes. She understands why he's doing this, and knows it's patently stupid to ask these loaded questions on a transatlantic flight, but she's frustrated and tired of him always being two steps ahead of her. She wants answers, not empty words meant to satiate her. "Yes," she says forcefully. "We will."

She lies back down and fingers the necklace at her throat, the one Petyr had painstakingly, unclasped from Lysa's neck as he knelt over her body. The one her mother had coveted for years, if her aunt's words were meant to be believed. Was it not rightfully hers? They'd taken everything else from her – her mother, her father, her sister and her brothers. Her first love took her virginity and her dignity far too young, his family took her sense of self and left her an empty husk. And her aunt took the one thing she had always held onto – the knowledge that she was not only a Stark, but a Tully as well, strong and resilient and built to flow like the river in Ireland from which their family came. For years, she was so proud of that fact, held onto it during the roughest times, when she'd have given anything to no longer be a Stark. Aunt Lysa, with her shrill voice and gold-digging ways, the years of quiet passive-aggression and pointed barbs about her weight, her face, her hair, her dress, had slowly worn down that pride. And she loathed her aunt. _Loathed_ her. And so shouldn't she have this?

It had been the only heirloom her mother wanted to inherit. That Petyr gave it to her was no mistake. He hasn't slipped up, called her "Cat" in a long time, but she still knows. Her name is reverent on his lips when he does say it, but he sticks to "good girl" and "sweetling" and "darling" more often. Safer, she supposes, but strikingly less intimate.

She turns back onto her side, facing away from him in the fully-reclined seat, and hooks two fingers onto the string of pearls around her throat. It feels as if it could tighten and choke her to death at any moment.

She can feel his hand at rest on her side now, not stroking or moving but simply lying still, a comforting gesture.

It's so heavy.

* * *

5. _in vienna_

This is the part of Europe that Sansa does not know so well, and so she sticks close to Petyr as they wind through the streets. His German is markedly better than hers, though she's picking it up more and more quickly these days, now that she's immersed in it, so she lets him navigate.

They're due to fly out after four days, but miss their flight after checking out of their hotel, and instead take a cab to a new apartment that Petyr has apparently procured at some point in the past week. The lease is under someone else's name that Sansa has never heard, a Dontos Hollard, and the apartment itself is well-appointed, with mid-century modern furniture and a beautiful view from the bedroom window. Petyr arranges a leave of absence from Vale for them both, under the guise of taking an extended vacation here in Europe, and they spend the first few weeks trotting around the city happily, if nervously.

She is Alayne here in Vienna, even though she knows most Austrians don't know or care either way about an ongoing police investigation halfway across the world. It's safer and somehow comforting to be someone else. Alayne drinks Turkish coffees in cafés, wanders through the finest museums and palaces, and learns to breathe again. Petyr keeps odd hours, occasionally takes conference calls on American time, but for the most part he follows where she goes. It surprises her how much he knows about art and artists, and what he doesn't know, she's happy to elaborate on, waxing lyrical about the periods and backgrounds of each of the subjects. He watches her intently, that catlike look of bemusement on his face as she flushes and mutters, "I'm sorry, this can't be so interesting to you."

"If it's interesting to you, I'm fascinated." She smiles and they move on to a roomful of Egon Schieles.

After five weeks, the air is starting to turn chilly. She aches for New York in the fall, but more than that, she aches for her real home. She wants to go back to Winterfell.

She tells Petyr this one night, as they lie curled up in their plush bed, German news on in the background as he strokes her hair. "I miss it. I miss the countryside. I miss speaking English. I miss walking outside in the morning and hearing birds and water and trees, not these… city sounds. I want to go back."

"We'll rent a place in the Alps," he says soothingly, but Sansa shakes her head.

"No," she says. "We're going home. Or, at least, I am. You can't keep me here forever."

"I don't want to keep you _here_. I want to keep you safe."

"You want to keep_ yourself_ safe," she sputters, goading him, daring him to get angry. Gods, she wishes he would. He doesn't dare show his anger around her, never flashes red hot, just stays cool and calculating even when she's burning up inside. "You're afraid they're going to find you out. Admit it, Petyr. This is what you've always wanted – safe and sound in a little love nest with the girl you always loved, but it's not my mother you've got, Petyr, it's me, and I want to go_ home_."

"Then go," he says, and is it just her, or can she hear a hint of anger in his cold tone? "Lysa's death was ruled a suicide weeks ago. You know that. This isn't about my own future. It's about yours. But forgive me, for wanting to keep you alive."

"Alive and locked up in a foreign city?" Sansa says, her voice a little louder than usual now.

"First, you're hardly locked up, as I believe you're free to come and go all over the city as you please. But furthermore, I don't know whether you've noticed, Sansa, but there are people in this world out to murder everyone with the last name Stark, and some of us might have a vested interest in keeping you safe and sound and away from those threats!" He's definitely losing his cool now. Sansa grits her teeth as he continues, unbowed. "Roose Bolton and Tywin Lannister want everyone in your family dead, and that _includes you_. Your sister didn't run away from boarding school, she was kidnapped and probably murdered by a former security agent for the Baratheon family. Cat and Robb get blown up at a wedding, Bran and Rick just _happen_ to die in a coincidental house fire, your father just _happens_ to get in the way of an assault rifle outside the embassy – do you think the curse they talk about is real, or that this is all some funny coincidence?"

"Of course not!" Sansa shouts. "But you've got to let me make these choices myself!"

"Your choices will get you_ killed_, Sansa."

She swings her legs over the side of the bed and stalks to the window, looking out toward the easternmost edge of the Alps. She stays there, silent, for a good long while, until she turns to face Petyr, who's sitting on the edge of the bed in his boxers and t-shirt, looking pained but painfully serious as well.

"I want to go home," she says firmly, and he sighs.

"No," he says. "Not yet. This is not a game. You're a moving target, and you don't realize how many people have a vested interest in your death."

Sansa bites her lip before letting the question slip from her tongue. "Well, why are you so invested in my staying alive?"

He looks taken aback by her candor, and slouches a little, as if the question has physically hit him in the chest. "Why shouldn't I be?" he asks. "Sansa, you have to understand. I love you. I've grown to care for you deeply. Not just as a Tully or a Stark, but as _Sansa Stark_, a woman with strong opinions about Keynesian economics and wine and Flemish painters and politics and pastries. When was the last time you heard someone say that?"

"Do you realize how manipulative you are?" Sansa sighs. "I swear, you must do it without even thinking about it."

"I do," agrees Petyr. "Because it's my nature. And it's yours as well, make no mistake. I've seen the way you flirt with bartenders for free drinks, have just the right excuses ready when you've forgotten your wallet or identification. I've seen you argue circles around museum guards who told you to take off your backpack, Sansa. You're as bad as I am in that regard. You make me uneasy and you make me angry and I love you even more for it. You're the only woman who can match me."

And he's right. The reality of the situation hits her hard, settles in her stomach like a block of ice, and then simultaneously lights her on fire. She flies across the room, kisses him hard, straddles his lap and wraps her arms around him. They're a matched set, the Queen of Hearts and Ace of Spades, Iago in a pressed suit and Lady Macbeth in pearls, and the knowledge that she has the same effect on him that he has on her, somehow, sets her free.

"We don't have to stay here," he says some time later. "But we're not going back to America. Not yet."

Sansa wrinkles her brow. "London, then?"

"Possibly." He shrugs. "For a time. Then Paris. Then Berlin. I can run the company from Europe, and given recent developments, it might be better that I do."

They fall asleep intertwined that night, legs tangled together on the rumpled white sheets, and as she drifts off, she feels, for the first time, safe.


End file.
